Looking Up From The Bench

Today I wanted to share something that is a little uncomfortable for me to talk about. It’s been on my mind for the last couple weeks and with all the great experiences I’ve had lately, I thought it would be a good time to bring it up.  As I mentioned in previous posts, I’ve always had a lot of anxiety; there are many reasons for this… And due to that I was  (and sometimes still am) generally scared of other people. Growing up, I didn’t really have many friends and was legitimately terrified of anyone who was a peer. It was so severe I spent some of the short time I attended normal high school hiding in the bathroom to eat lunch, too afraid to even brave the lunch room. I didn’t really ever feel like I necessarily “fit in” anywhere. Due to this extremely difficult anxiety combined with a lot of other things I had going on, there were times I didn’t really even want to be in the world and wasn’t sure what the purpose for life was. I don’t want to focus on these dark...

So, I guess for the next five weeks it can be expected that all my blog posts will be about the CrossFit Games Open , since it pretty much consumes my life. But that’s okay I’m learning a lot! I mentioned last week the mental shift I experienced going into the first open workout. This week, I definitely feel my mental strength was lacking. And I’m disappointed in myself for that, more so than even my performance thus far (I might give it one more go on Monday). I would say the crux of this workout for me was the double-unders. In the past, this movement has been notoriously difficult. And this year, now that my lower body is good to go, I will be practicing daily! Anyway, I thought it might be cathartic for me to go through my first trials of this workout and share what I learned. Day 1: Friday I decided I would do this workout in my normal gym environment as opposed to a gym in the community that was a hosting a more competitive atmosphere. Since the workout was a little ne...